The Vanishing Santa Claus of Munich's Shooting

Munich's Amoklauf has been a minefield of hidden discoveries.

For instance, it has been brought to my attention that initial reports of a Santa Claus being seen near the attack are disappearing from media reports. 

This is the archived passage:

Two witnesses told n-tv television that they saw a man dressed as Santa Claus walking away from the scene of the shooting with a crowd of people. One said the man had blonde hair, was not carrying a weapon but had a suitcase.

The account is still visible at the Blue Lives Matter News, the Arab America News, and the Otago Daily News.

While searching on Google shows that this same phrase existed in previous online copies of articles on the Munich attack, they have been deleted from later editions. See here, here, and here, for three examples. 

Was there a "Christmas in July" event happening at this mall that the media wishes to hide?

In line with the twilight language, it probably is of no surprise to readers here that Santa Claus - Saint Nicholas - should make an appearance in the Munich rampage. 

The contemporary thoughts of Jim Brandon, author of Weird America (1978) and The Rebirth of Pan (1983), are turning out to be worthy of our attention, in the strangest places. (For more on the Nicholas name game, see here.)

Besides the materials on school shootings found in the gunman's room, and his obvious choice of the 5th anniversary of the Norway: 7.22.11 Breivik Attacks, even the location may have been picked on purpose.

The Olympia Park Mall was built near where the previous entitled "Munich Massacre" occurred. The Munich massacre was an attack during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, at which eleven Israeli Olympic team members were taken hostage and eventually killed, along with a German police officer, by the Palestinian terrorist group Black September.

Santa Terror

Santa baby, just slip a Sable under the tree for me;

Been an awful good girl, Santa baby,

So hurry down the chimney tonight

...

~ "Santa Baby" was written by J. Javits, P. Springer, T. Springer.

Santa Claus is coming to town.

We have grown to expect some dark news associated with Santa in most years. 

On two of my "evil clown" lists, Santas were part of the story.

My 2008 list ended with the ultimate evil twisted clown-like finale to the year of 2008, when a costumed man, Bruce Jeffrey Pardo, 45, plotting revenge against his ex-wife, dressed up in a Santa Claus suit, went to his former in-laws' Christmas Eve party and slaughtered nine people. He then burned their house down before killing himself hours later. The Killer Santa killings took place on East Knollcrest Drive, Covina, California.

It happened again, in 2011.

Grapevine, a Dallas suburb, is dubbed the "Christmas Capital of Texas." It was there where a Christmas Day rampage occurred. A gunman who killed six people and himself at a family Christmas celebration was dressed in a Santa Claus suit when he opened fire, local police said. The dead were four women and three men, ages 15 to 59. The victims appeared to have just opened Christmas presents when the shooting started in the Lincoln Vineyards, a middle-income complex near Colleyville Heritage High School, one of the area's most highly regarded schools.

Authorities later identified the shooter as a 56-year-old Persian man, Aziz Yazdanpanah, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. His wife, with whom he was having marital and financial problems, like Aziz, was born in Iran; their children were American-born.

Welcome to bad Santas in 2013:

This year, the drunken fights issuing from the ill-advised SantaCons, continue. In New York City, the Union Square videos of the fist-a-cuffs went virtual. See here.

Then, on December 19th, the fear many people have about school shootings and weird pedophiles combined in a bit of "Santa Terror" in Hollis, New Hampshire.

Police in New Hampshire said a Santa Claus whose presence at a school prompted recesses to be canceled in the district was trying to spread "holiday cheer."
Hollis police Lt. Rich Mello said officers were called to Hollis Primary School just before 10 a.m. Thursday [December 19, 2013] after a report of a mystery Santa tapping on windows and waving to students from outside the school, the Nashua (N.H.) Telegraph reported Friday.
The man was gone before police arrived and other schools in the district were notified. Interim Superintendent Dr. John Moody said students were kept inside for recess as a precaution and parents were notified of the incident.
Mello said the mystery Santa contacted police around 12:30 p.m. to identify himself. Mello said the man, whose name was not released because he is not being charged with a crime, told officers he was trying to "spread some holiday cheer."
"He just thought it would be a cool holiday thing for the kids to see Santa wave through the window," Mello said. "He kind of set off a firestorm of precautions."
...Source.

Santa is not all he appears to be. The origins are in the Wildman, as I noted recently.

For a detailed read on the realities behind the legend of Saint Nicholas/Santa Claus and kin, you will need to digest "Re: 'Alias St. Nick'" by Matthew Bell with Jim Brandon. The essay is worth just the footnotes, actually. So don't skip those.

Just like Burning Man in Nevada, there is a tradition in Sweden that is annually followed.

The burning of Sweden's Gävle Goat has occurred 26 times before 2013, and a few days ago, it was still standing.

But on December 21st, AP shared this:

Vandals in Sweden have burned down for the 27th time a giant straw goat meant to symbolize Christmas spirit.
The 13-meter (43-foot) high and 3.6-ton heavy straw goat was engulfed in flames early Saturday after unidentified assailants attacked it in the Swedish town of Gavle, 150 kilometers (90 miles) north of Stockholm.
The straw goat is a centuries-old Scandinavian yule symbol that preceded Santa Claus as the bringer of gifts.
Since 1966, when the tradition of erecting the giant straw goat in the town square was introduced, Vandals have burnt it down 27 times.

Dendermonde Joker

The Joker was at the door, and they let him in.

The painted face of the alleged Belgian killer has been drawn by an eyewitness and has now been published. His face and name have now also been revealed (new update for 01.25.09 below).

This drawing was made based on data provided by Rudi Brusselmans who was a witness of the arrest of the crèche attack suspect now being held. (See here for more details on the attack.) The attack happened in the "Fairytale-land" or "Fabeltjesland" creche or daycare.

More comparisons with the Joker have surfaced in the Belgian media.

Correctly, the press there is noting that although the alleged attacker's face was painted white and his eyes were made black, and his distinctive pink/red hair was cut in spikes, "as if he had cut his hair himself," his mouth was apparently not painted, as was Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight.

Incorrectly, the European media said that the day (January 23, 2009) of the Dendermonde crèche or daycare attack was on the same date as the death of Heath Ledger. The first anniversary of Ledger's death, however, was January 22, 2009. To be exact, Heath Ledger was declared dead at 3:36 pm Eastern DST in Manhattan, New York, on January 22, 2009, and hit the news that night and the next morning. The attack on the nursery occurred at 10:00 a.m. CET (9:00 a.m. UTC) on January 23, 2009.

Nevertheless, there appears to be strong evidence the Dendermonde Joker reflects the copycat effect in this instance.

A police officer confirmed: “He had his face painted like Heath Ledger playing The Joker.”

The comparisons are clearcut in terms of mode of violence (knives), outward appearance, and even the arrest behavior. For example, in a headline and subheadline published on Saturday, January 24th, in the UK's Telegraph, the copycat imagery is summed up:

"Belgium 'joker' creche killer snorted with laughter in police interrogation: Belgium's suspected 'joker' killer snorted with laughter when interrogated by police about a frenzied knife attack that left a woman and two babies, aged six months and nine months, dead."

The two infant victims of the attack on a creche in the Belgian town of Dendermonde on Friday, January 23, 2009, have been named as Leon a baby boy aged six months and Corneel, a girl aged nine months.

Marita Blindeman, the 54 year old childcare worker who was killed, raised the alarm before being killed.

Police and prosecution sources have said that the 20-year-old man, dubbed "the Joker" because of his painted white face, eye shadow and ginger hair, has no history of mental illness.

He tricked his way into the Fabeltjesland ("land of fairy stories") day care center at 10 am local time by claiming to have a meeting with one of the members of staff. He then drew a 12-inch-long knife and began to slash at children aged between a few months and two years old.

There were 21 infants in the creche and six supervisors. All of the victims were stabbed in the throat or head. Parents gathered in the Dendermonde town hall and, with psychologists in support, identified the victims using photographs.

The addresses of three daycare locations were found on the suspect ("Kim D") when he was arrested.

+++
Update Sunday, January 25, 2009:

The alleged attacker, now under arrest, and his victims have been fully identified.

The man in custody for the stabbings is Kim de Gelder, 20, originally of Sint Niklaas (= Saint Nicholas), which is eight miles from Dendermonde. His colleagues described the Flemish man as being "crazy about movies."

De Gelder would translate, in English, as "the gelder" = "one who gelds or castrates." But there appears to be an alternative explanation for the name in Belgian (see the comments below), which is related to the word for "gold."

The Church of Saint Nicholas was founded in the 13th century and gave its name to de Gelder's former hometown. The history of Sint-Niklaas proper starts in 1217, when the bishop of Tournai, following advice from the local clergy, founded the church to Saint Nicholas there. The city keeps seven giants: Janneken, Mieke, Santa Claus and Zwarte Piet, and the three Magi: Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar.

Sinterklaas (also called Sint-Nicolaas or De Goedheiligman in Dutch and Saint Nicolas in French) is a traditional Winter holiday figure in the Netherlands, Aruba, Netherlands Antilles and Belgium, celebrated every year on Saint Nicholas' eve, December 5, or, in Belgium, on the morning of December 6. (Ah, the day after, just as the attack in Belgium was the day after Heath Ledger/The Joker's death day.) The feast celebrates the name day of Saint Nicholas, patron saint of, among other things, needless to say, children.

The young victims of Dendermonde's ("Rumble or Thunder World's") Fabeltjesland ("Fairytale Land") were nine-month-old Leon Garcia and six-month-old Corneel Vermeir. Marita Blindeman, 54, a daycare worker lost her life attempting to save others.

See comments below for a discussion of what "Fabeltjesland" may or may not mean.

The Belgian and Dutch media and the UK's Telegraph began publishing the photograph of the suspect on January 24-25, 2009. The image being published is the high school year book picture of self-confessed mass-murderer Kim de Gelder. Reports indicate that he cut his hair short soon after finishing high school.

De Gelder is on suicide watch in his undisclosed location in Bruges, Belgium. He has gone on a hunger strike and was moved to the medical section of the Bruges jail.

Sunday media report that "some 7,000 of Dendermonde's 43,000 residents walked in a silent march past the creche Fabeltjesland (Fairytale Land)."

Thanks to Dutch/Belgian translations from Theo Paijmans.